Tough Decision

I am planning to move all my applications to Round2. Well, hmm.. I can still complete my applications by Nov1 deadline for Ross, Emory and Darden. But my apprehension is that i may not be able to put my best application forward. You attend bschool only once in your life and dont screw this. I want to give my best shot at it and no matter what the result is, i wanted to have a regret free life at the end of the application season. I must admit and digest the fact that i am a good planner but a very bad implementor. I did all the planning to apply for schools in R1 and did the sufficient research on the schools, on the recommenders, on the essays, on the GMAT, on the goals in no particular order. But things didn't work out as per the plan, one main reason could be that i slackened and an auxiliary reason could be a little bad luck.

Resons for moving to R2:

1. Primarly the low GMAT score. I have to improve it and that is the only solution that i can see now. May be i stand a meager chance with my current score but i don't want to take chances. It is because i still have time with me. Yeah..Only if i move my apps to Round2.If i am to apply with my present score, i would promptly drop Ross from the list. It has the mean gmat score in 700's and i am no where near it. I still think and believe that i have the necessary leadership qualities in the work place to convince the adcom that i will make a good mba student. Also, i
am sort of clear on my post-mba career goals. The worrying factor is the GMAT score and i want to see the darn improvement. This really bolster my chances. Atleast they won't reject my application based on the low score.
So, what went wrong the last time?
Verbal...A very poor score (in 20's) in this section toppled the total score.
Quant - I scored 50 in this section. Consciously, i was unable to solve one problem and may be that stopped me from scoring 51. But it doesn't matter. I am happy with 50 and i will take that score on any day. I have a highly imbalanced quant-verbal score and this is added to my worry list.
AWA - i scored 6 out of 6 in this. So just want an encore of this. Even a dip in half a point won't hurt.
Retrospection:
I devoted a good amount of time preparing for verbal. But looking back, i am able to identify why i scored badly in verbal. Its the RC and CR. I never never practiced RC in the right spirit. True. I always used to think that doing RC's is a waste of time and i can simply ace these without preparation. In my practice tests, Out of 13 questions, i used to get 6,7 or 8 questions correct and in most tests my concentration levels used to fade when i do RC. I just hate these. I was always keen on doing SC's. But RC's are quite boring for me and proved to be my nemesis. CR's take a middle stance. I am never too confident at the sametime i am never bugged by these. May be i made enough mistakes in CR's as well to plunge my score to abyss. All in all, the results speak volumes on how bad i am in verbal. It might be that i fared very well in RC's and CR's and totally screwed SC's. Who knows. But before the test atleast i knew that my preparation for RC's and CR's suck.
What am i doing these days to improve the score?
Actually nothing much..I started the prep few days back but again didnt touch the book in the last 5 days. This could be the heights of procastination. hey, its i and anything is possible. I can see that this is high time to get done with GMAT forever. I will be taking the test in Nov. Initially i planned to take it in Oct end, just before the deadlines. But it looks like a very risky proposition. If i do the prep in haste and endup with a low score again, the whole purpose behind i retaking the exam is gone. This time, i want to write the exam with full preparation. Even if i end up with the same score, atleast i knew that i was prepared well for the exam.

2. There is no reason two. GMAT is the only factor that is holding me back.

Why i planned to apply in R1.
Though i am not done with GMAT, i am doing reasonably good in other areas (atleast i think so). My schools for R1 are Ross, Emory and Darden. I filled the application forms (except for few fields which i am doubtful of). I started working on the essays. The initial drafts forall Emory essay's are ready. Except third essay, i drafted Ross essay's also. Though i didn't start Darden essay's, i am fairly confident that it won't consume much time after finishing Ross and Emory essays. Since the deadline is 20 days away, i can easily finish the essays. This led me to think that i am not out of the game and can still submit the application in Round1. I have one recommender who is very supportive and is ready to recommend me. But i am slightly skeptical of the other recommender (real busy guy) and this is a cause of little concern to me.

These blogs answered few of my questions and i found them helpful.http://metalrulz.blogspot.com
http://eklavya-mba.blogspot.com.These guyz have low gmat scores and struggled a bit in the application process.

The ball is always in my court because applying in R1 or R2 is my decision in the end. But i want to take a good decision on this. Either I can stretch and finish the whole prep (gmat) in the next two weeks or prepare for 2-3 hours daily for a month and work on the essays simultaneously. I will take the decision soon (next 2-3 days). Acutally i took the decision, but i just wanted to make sure that i am not doing something wrong.

Adios.

Updates

I know..I know.. I know..Its been a long time since my last post. The running turtle got a little lazy when he is supposed to be busy with essays. Here are the updates on various aspects of my application.

GMAT
After a lot of thinking and rethinking, i still couldn't come to any plausible conclusion regarding my GMAT. Yeah!!! i already took once and scored in 600's (read: less than 650). I am in a dilemma whether to apply with the same score or take gmat again and improve my lacklustre score. I spent some time in the BW b-school forums reading all the low gmat success stories to find some motivation. Moreover, it becomes really difficult to zero in on the schools when you have a low score. When i look at some of my favourite schools average gmat scores (in the ranges of 680-710), i feel that it's a total waste to apply to those schools with my non-stellar, good for nothing score.
All in all, I came to the conclusion that its better to take gmat again. I still have time and energy to do it again and there is no point in believing that i can become yet another success story with low gmat score. It might happen, but it looks like i am at the heights of optimism. All these days, due to some unavoidable circumstances (read: work and personal problems) i couldn't take gmat again. But now i figured that i might get time in October to take gmat once again to kill that beast forever. So part of september will be dedicated to gmat prep apart from writing essays.

TOEFL
Initially, i decided to write TOEFL once i am done with GMAT. But i changed my plans and wrote gmat few weeks back. I even got my score which cleared the minimum requirement of 100+ for many schools. But i failed to score 25+ in one section (read: Speaking) which is a requirement for very few schools. I didnt know this before the test. Anyhow it's not that serious to worry about.

Essays
The only progress i did in this most important aspect of application process is to read sample essays. I didn't even write a single draft, but i am aiming to apply for 3-4 schools in R1. I am not even sure of which schools to apply for. Now after reading all this, I am sure many will think that i have gone insane. This guy don't even have a good gmat score, planning his next attempt in oct, don't even write a single essay (not even rough drafts) and moreover don't have a definite list of those 3-4 schools. But aspiring to send application to atleast three schools in first round. I think this evidence is enough to come to that conclusion. Ok.. jokes apart, i want to get serious about this whole process. No more slacking!!! I am planning to start my essays with Darden. Lets see how much progress i will make this weekend.

Run TURTLE Run...Gotta finish the race!!!

I'm back

I have been MIA for the last couple of weeks. To be precise, i was away from all the things related to MBA after my gmat for three weeks. That is a big break. Its real nice to see some new faces in the hella's list. Welcome to the fellow 2008 applicant bloggers.

Few updates..

The cat is out of the bag.
I kept my MBA plans to myself till this point. Like many applicants, I don't want my boss to know about all this hoopla well-in-advance. I am coying with the idea of revealing my plans about mba in the last week of august or in the first week of september to my boss. He is one of my recommenders. But he found this in a funny way. He saw me take prints of BusinessWeekGuideToTheBestBusinessSchools.pdf. I was a little worried because i want to inform this in a formal way. Anyhow, I divulged my plans to other teammates and now everyone knows it.I informed my other potential recommender that i am considering mba. I can't contain my curiosity on how they will react, when i ask them for reco's.

Gmat
Well. I have to start preparation for the retake. Thinking that 20-30 days is good enough. But to find the slots in the month of august/sep is a tad difficult.

Toefl
I will take this after gmat. But for now, it should be kept on the back burner.